Hi there.
In this lecture, I'm going to show you an absolutely iconic game, Edward Laska, who some believe
might be a relative of the great Emanuel Lasker.
You know, a former world chess champion and we'll ask is still a very decent player.
He's playing against George Allen Thomas in 1912.
A casual game, believe it or not.
Yeah, these casual games do get remembered sometimes, and this is actually featured on Netflix, the
Explains series, which is a good series worth checking out.
So anyway, D4 from Edward Lasker.
We have a six from George Allen Thomas.
So he wants to play actually a Dutch defense.
Sometimes if you play the Dutch defense immediately there's the dangerous Staunton gambit, which gives
many attacking perks.
So anyway we see E6 and now it's a free F five.
So at least there's no Staunton gambit.
But there is 93.
This is a nifty move quite often, and the positional threat is E4.
Black kind of develops some parries that automatically might have stakes.
That night is pins Bishop A7 And now this is a very interesting move.
Bishop takes F6 often and even in neural network games where they beaten very strong engines, often
giving up bishop for a point does lead to great pressure.
On the other colour of the bishop, you've just given up because you've removed when you remove a knight
and it's versatile.
So sometimes you can statistically add more pressure than the opponent and here to the light squares.
So more pressure has been added now to the light squares.
So potentially this bishop can be involved in light squares, but also these guys potentially involved
in light at square attack.
So mathematically there's a kind of superiority which helps make successful attacks.
Sometimes we have F tanks E for 9/10, E for.
And of course this move my circles clears this diagonal, which could be very sensitive.
We have Be6 Knight's E5 and Black has to tread carefully.
Black Castled If Bishop takes E5, what has a nifty move here?
Can you spot what that is for?
Ten points?
Yeah.
Quinn H five check is stronger than 85 because then we're weakening squares here with interest.
So this is very nice.
If, for example, D5 Black's got some problems here positionally, if Quinn f6 okay, we could trade
C seven for D for bluntly for White's overall better.
So anyway, Black Consort and we have Bishop, the Free Bishop B seven, and now a very aggressive move.
So this is this is the thing.
The F6 Knight was defending a key light square and now there's an open invitation.
Can you imagine that?
There's an open invitation to get the queen near the king.
This is a basic ingredient of attacking chess quite often.
You know, when I won the Lloyds underwriting in 1989, I basically had this philosophy use my absolutely
best resources on squares around the opponent's king.
So this is a move which is totally justified in this opening sequence, and it's very dangerous.
Black has to be careful about Knight takes F6 now and looking at H seven.
So Black tries to do something about H seven here, but actually blundered terrifically.
There are two moves.
One is better than the other.
One move is G6.
But sure, this sorts out some of the problems.
Queen E2 96 But why it should be better after nine takes F6 Rook takes F6 and it is possible for White
Castle here with the x ray pressure on D seven justifying this tactic of of losing a pawn here.
Queen Ephraim my five bishop takes rook taints.
This ends up being a slightly better situation for white only slightly but there's a back move, actually.
Bishop takes E5 and Y has to tread carefully.
If D takes that loses a pawn, that's going to be slightly better.
There is compensation for it, but it's not entirely great.
So in fact, if this had occurred in this situation, white space is actually 92 and now black has to
play a move like G6 because if Bishop f6, then this is a standard mate pattern.
So Bishop G6, Queen 87.
So let's imagine G6 Queen takes E5.
This isn't even possession.
So that's really what should have happened if Black was playing super accurately.
But you can see why Black played this move.
Perhaps expecting Knight takes f6 check when there is G takes.
And you can see that actually resourcefully defends H seven.
So defenders can feel that they're being resourceful but they might have missed a little trick and the
black has missed the little trick here which is still an issue with H7 is a little bit of a clue.
There's actually a force might in seven here.
You might want to pause the video and work this out for a thousand points.
Yeah, it's a beautiful one to work out.
So once play absolutely forced noncontroversial sequence leading into champ mate.
Believe it or not.
I'm about to reveal.
Queen size 87.
Czech king size nine, Size F six.
This is a double check.
So the king has to move.
That's the thing about double checks.
If King H 896 is Chapman.
So the king goes at 86 and the king is brought down the board here with this move my egg for Chuck.
So the Kings only got one square and now H four check brings the King down the board.
G three down the board and now Bishop E to check down the board.
Now there's a choice of how to make the king here on G2.
Rook h two check was chosen.
Also quick is just castling because how does black defend against this or this?
The king has come to our resources.
This is a beautiful thing to get in chess.
The king coming to us rather than our attacking resources going to the king.
So, yes, this is just mating.
This this one is mating or rook one.
Right.
So but anyway, in the game it was rook to check giving a choice of checkmate King D2 was taken and
that is checkmate.
There was also castling queenside if if that was preferred.
But yes.
So some lessons from this game.
These are iconic games and with them it's good to search for the abstract elements.
I find in my experience.
I mean, one of my favorite findings is basically bishop of our counterpart, and that comes from looking
at a lot of neural network games, actually how they're beating even the top and let's go engines.
So there's something definitely even against tough resistance in a bishop about account spot.
But here there is something abstract which I also noticed from even neural network wins against classic
engines, which is giving up a bishop for annoyance.
You end up quite often with a superiority on the other color.
So here dot square bishop given up the night we get superiority sometimes on the light squares and conversely,
if you give up a light squared bishop, you might get dark square pressure after it's something to celebrate.
And I've seen celebrated in many neural network game examples.
So this is an interesting pattern and we have many benefits here on this diagonal, dangerous practical
benefits.
So when I played a bit ambitious, they had to say the least, with Queen H five.
So Black basically had to play Bishop thanks to E5 to test if whites can play 92.
But yeah, we get this move, which, you know, was hopeful in 90 6f6 it seems, for G tanks, but
then this false checkmate, you can see that the attack starts online squares at least.
But yeah, the other key point, bringing the king to our resources.
Yeah, that is a way of attacking.
It's still the goal is met.
When we attack, we usually think, yeah, traditionally we're heading towards the king.
But what if the king came to us?
Great stuff.
I hope you enjoyed this game.
And consider sometimes giving up a bishop for annoyance.
The kind of bishop power was maybe given too much of a high regard.
There's been many, many absolute classic winds literally giving up both bishops in classic games like
immature against Kasparov, which will show in this course.
So, you know, sometimes giving a bishop for a knight to get the pressure, see what it does, see
what the France are.
And sometimes, yeah, you get a spectacular win like this.
So bringing the king down the boards for its demise.
Okay.
I hope you enjoyed that very much.